I am in the midst of a six week run of refereeing in soccer tournaments every weekend. I listened to this book while traveling to and from one of those tournaments this past weekend. Since moving away from any religious belief in a supernatural god, I have found myself missing many of the community-based aspects of religion. So when I learned about this book many years ago, it piqued my interest.
How God Works is an exercise in what its author calls “religioprospecting”. By this he means looking at the world’s religions and their rituals so see how they have served humanity through the millennia. After all, if they have lasted to today, there must be something valuable there. This isn’t unlike the scientist who goes searching for healing concoctions in the Amazon with the hope of finding some healing aspect of a local remedy that could be repurposed for a new pharmaceutical cure. And I found the author’s exploration to be fascinating and insightful.
The text starts with birth, steps through the different aspects of aging (youth, adolescence, adulthood, middle age, etc.) and ends with death and grief. In each chapter he sets out specific examples of rituals that serve the religious through those aspects of life, exploring why they work based on scientific research. As I read these chapters, I was a little disappointed he wasn’t giving the reader tips for how to incorporate what was learned outside of the specific religious context. Turns out I was just a little ahead of the author. His epilogue does just that. Rather than giving specific examples, he provides thoughtful ideas for how the reader can take what they have learned from the book and create their own rituals to support themselves and those they love, regardless of religion or even the lack of any faith at all.
My rating: 4.5/5
